Hotstar breaks global record yet again during the India vs New Zealand ICC Cricket World Cup semi-final

The streaming giant recorded 25.3 Mn simultaneous
viewers during the match – a new global record, and a reach of more than 100 Mn
daily users on the platform

Mumbai, July 15th, 2019 – Hotstar, India’s largest premium streaming platform, continued to raise the bar in live streaming, setting a new global benchmark during the India vs New Zealand semi-final on 10th July 2019. The platform registered an unprecedented 25.3 million concurrent viewers, shattering its own previous world record of 18.6 million set during the VIVO IPL 2019 final. Hotstar also witnessed upwards of 15 million concurrent viewers across multiple matches through the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Built to handle immense scale, Hotstar had previously crossed the
milestone of 100 million daily users during the India vs Pakistan match. Even
with the massive cricket consumption, the entertainment consumption on Hotstar
remains extremely high. 60% of cricket viewers also consume entertainment
content on the platform and the past 12 months have seen a 2X growth in
entertainment consumption. The watch time on entertainment content is 1.5 times
that of sports content on the platform. These astounding numbers are a
resounding testimony to Hotstar’s immense technology prowess, with the platform
continuing to be the preferred destination for sports and entertainment for
millions of Indians across the country.

Commenting on the
development, Varun Narang, Chief Product Officer, Hotstar, said, “We are thrilled about, once again, re-writing the global record for the highest concurrent video viewership
anywhere in the world.

Using tech in
creating a delightful consumer experience is at the core of what we do. From
building scalable services that enable massive concurrency to managing
complexities of live streaming from video acquisition to authentication to
delivery, we prepare for failure in the system. We load test our infrastructure
extensively to identify failure points.

With a robust technology backbone and expertise in driving scale by changing behaviour and growing the category, we look forward to setting new benchmarks and delivering unmatched experiences to all our users.”

Commenting on the record, Vinod Thadani, Chief Digital Officer,
Mindshare South Asia, said, “Achieving 25.3
million simultaneous viewers in any match is no mean feat. The nail-biting
semi-final saw Hotstar’s viewership rise steadily and during the last leg of
the game, the viewership increased nearly with every ball! Also, what’s
remarkable is the fact that these numbers were attained for a disrupted
semi-final played over two days. It’s anyone’s guess what the figures would’ve
been had India made it to the finals. Hotstar would’ve definitely surpassed
these numbers and set new global standards.”

In
addition to India, Hotstar brought the ICC Cricket World Cup to consumers in
the US and Canada as well, who tuned in to the platform via the app, on the web
(us.hotstar.com & ca.hotstar.com), Google play store, app
store, as well as on living room devices like Roku TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV
Stick, Android TV, and Samsung Smart TV.

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